


Fere, Fret, Free

by Elsinore_and_Inverness



Category: Discworld
Genre: #Book: The Truth, #Medicine, #Millenium Hand and Shrimp, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23886715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsinore_and_Inverness/pseuds/Elsinore_and_Inverness
Summary: Vimes handed Drumknott a cup of tea and sat down beside him. The watch house was a warm refuge from the skin-freezing deep cold outside.They were sitting beside Vetinari’s bed in Igor’s workshop.
Relationships: Rufus Drumknott & Havelock Vetinari, Rufus Drumknott & Samuel Vimes, Samuel Vimes & Havelock Vetinari
Comments: 4
Kudos: 44





	Fere, Fret, Free

**Author's Note:**

> Fere: a) a spelling of ‘fear’ as read from a melting printing press 
> 
> b) companion, comrade, spouse

Vimes handed Drumknott a cup of tea and sat down beside him. The watch house was a warm refuge from the skin-freezing deep cold outside. 

They were sitting beside Vetinari’s bed in Igor’s workshop. He was asleep and not in a coma, Igor had said. At any rate he was moving around and appeared to be dreaming. 

“How’s he been?” Vimes asked.

Drumknott shook his head. “Not great. Been keeping the office freezing. Said it was to put people on edge, but I think it was just so he could do the one-piece-of-coal trick.”

“What’s that?”

“He keeps one piece of coal burning for hours.” Drumknott looked despondent. “And he’s stopped eating again. Been making a lot of jokes about ‘millennium hand and shrimp.’”

“Foul ole Ron sells the papers outside the palace, right?”

“He loved puns.”

Vimes put his hand on Drumknott’s good arm. “Now, now, there’s no need for the past tense.”

“He made sure real news got into the paper. ‘Man bites dog‘ sort of thing by telling de Worde not to put it in.” 

Vimes smiled. There was no one quite like Vetinari. He got under your skin. “I don’t like William de Worde.”

“He didn’t notice that you called the Patrician a patient and not a prisoner.”

“He would be even if he’d done it. People think he’s finally cracked.”

Drumknott’s eyes stung. Could it be possible? His employer had certainly been acting strange, but Vetinari was a strange person. Lord Vetinari note-lack-of-descriptor. They’d have to come up with a new epithet. 

“Do you think you could bring some papers from the Oblong Office? May as well keep things moving along. 

Vimes glanced at the sling on Drumknott’s arm. “Are you right or left handed?”

Drumknott wiggled his fingers so fast they blurred.

“I see.”

Igor looked over the top of the potato-tank at the sleeping man. 

“I think I thould put him on an intravenous.”

Vimes reacted first. “He doesn’t need new veins, he’s—“

“Could you do a bit of glucose too, is that safe?”

Vimes blinked. “Where are you from, Drumknott?”

“‘Intra’ means ‘into,’ Mister Vimes.”

Commander Vimes unfolded a newspaper and frowned at it. “I don’t like the phrase ‘in his current state of health.’”

“No,” Drumknott agreed, “but it’s right for a newspaper. Sounds newspaper-y.”

“De Worde’s a total idiot but the universe finds a way.”

Vetinari’s face moved in his sleep as though his dream had taken a turn for the distressing. 

“Is it weird that I feel like I should hold his hand?” the Commander of the Watch asked. 

Drumknott shook his head. 

“They’re not as good at they look. Can’t even play the piano faster than vivace,” Igor said. 

Vimes and Drumknott stared at him. 

Igor’s mouth was set in something between a pout and a grin. “That wath a joke.”

The watchman and the clerk looked back at the Patrician. 

He stirred and his eyes flickered open. He looked at Drumknott and Vimes and with some confusion at Igor, then back to Drumknott and Vimes, deciding it was safe to close his eyes again. 

“At least he’s getting some rest. Must be knackered,” Vimes said.

Two days later Vetinari tried to sit up. Drumknott helped rearrange the pillows behind him. “We know what happened. Not who they were working for.”

“Oh, I have a pretty good idea of who they were working for,” Vetinari took in the fresh bandages on Drumknott’s arm and the bruising on his head. “They’re going to —ing suffer for it.”

Vimes came down a few minutes later with a mug of warm broth. “You can’t keep doing this.”

“Being plotted against?”

“Drink that. Slowly.” 

“Yes, Sir Samuel.”

“The de Worde kid threw Scallatine oil at Angua.”

“I’d be the first to say stupidity is a useful quality in a journalist and they should train for it, but that just sounds like wanton cruelty.”

“And what do we say when we feel like this?” Vimes said slowly, in much the same tone of voice as a vampire with a songbook.

“Don’t let me detain you?”

“No.”

“Remember B. S. Johnson?” 

“Remember B. S. Johnson. Stupidity is more frequent than malice.”

“And that explains why you’ve had so many chances to hone your bedside manner?”

“Of course. Malice without stupidity doesn’t care that you’re more inconvenient dead, but stupidity thinks it can outwit you.”

“Can someone tell Mr. Ron to bring me my dog? He needs to know I’m safe.”

“Right away, sir.”


End file.
